Skip to Main Content
Women of the ELCA
  • Donate
  • Shop
  • Tools For Leaders
  • Publications
  • Daily Grace
  • Contact
  • Ministry & Action
    • Discipleship
    • Justice
      • Human Trafficking
      • Racial Justice Advocacy
      • Racial Justice Advocacy Network resources
      • Domestic Violence
    • Membership
    • Stewardship
      • Thankofferings
      • Faithful Friends
      • Katie’s Fund
      • Gift Planning
    • Special Initiatives
      • Raising Up Healthy Women & Girls
      • Dear Friend in Christ
    • Scholarships
      • Lutheran laywomen
      • Lutheran Ordained Ministry
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Events
  • About
    • History
    • Executive Board
    • Staff
    • Get Involved
  • Donate
  • Shop
  • Tools For Leaders
  • Publications
  • Daily Grace
  • Contact
« Back to WELCA Blog

What’s the right question?
by Valora Starr

8.8.2013
|
Post

2200500024_e93db99b61_mRecently we had a brilliant discussion following the blog post of Victoria Contreras, Dear media: stop misrepresenting us. Vicky encouraged us to look closer at what is behind Unilever’s Dove Evolution and the Axe Apollo commercials.

I decided to check that out, and I found Unilever has indeed done meaningful research in creating the Campaign for Real Beauty. I did not, however, find similar research in producing the more than 60 Axe commercials including “Boom Chicka Wah Wah,” “Axe Apollo” and “Axe Black Chill“ to name a few. That’s disturbing.

I even found teaching notes titled “Dove and Axe: Examples of Hypocrisy and Good Marketing?” for ethics classes. I came across a blog post with this intriguing title— Raising daughters to have high self-esteem and the problem with that? where the author quotes Jessica Valenti whose article “The Upside of Ugly” appeared in The Nation.

As my friend writer Jaclyn Friedman once said to me, the problem isn’t that girls don’t know their worth—it’s that they absolutely do know their value in society. Young women know exactly how ugly the culture believes them to be. So when we teach girls to simply “love themselves”, we’re implicitly telling them to accept the world as it is. We’re saying that being beautiful is something worth having when we should be telling them a culture that demands as much is toxic.

The words “we’re implicitly telling them to accept the world as it is” keep me thinking: are we asking the right questions?

Another 17-year-old, when asked what she thought about the whole self-esteem conversation, supported the commenter. She rattled off a ton of reasons why the conversation is one-sided then asked me, “is anyone concerned with the self-esteem of boys?”

Shifting our thoughts to Women of the ELCA’s health initiative Raising Up Healthy Women and Girls, the question I have is this: can we raise healthy girls by avoiding how we are raising boys?

Valora K Starr is director for discipleship.

Photo by Colin Kinner. Used with permission.

Share
No Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Categories

  • Post (1,256)
  • News (295)
    • Gathering 2021 (9)
    • Triennial Convention 2021 (7)
  • Devotions (76)
  • 2122 (3)
  • Uncategorized (2)
Women of the ELCA
17h
Women of the ELCA
@WomenoftheELCA

Happy birthday, Katharina von Bora Luther! 🎉⭐️🎂 From "A Bold Life of Faith: Katharina von Bora Luther" by Linda Post Bushkofsky, A resource from Women of the ELCA, 2009. womenoftheelca.org/filebin/pd… #KatiesBirthday #2122KatiesFund #KatharinavonBoraLutherwasborntoday #Jan29 pic.twitter.com/fC9yD265al

Expand reply reply retweet retweet favorite favorite
Back to home

8765 W. Higgins Rd.

Chicago IL 60631

800-638-3522

[email protected]

Stay In Touch

Sign up for the WELCA Newsletter

Explore WELCA
  • Ministry & Action
  • Daily Grace
  • Resource Library
  • Events
  • Blog
  • News
  • About WELCA
  • Tools For Leaders
  • Publications
  • Donate
  • Shop
  • Photos
Explore Publications

Bold Cafe

A Lutheran perspective for women of Christian faith or any woman who is interested in how faith relates to the issues facing women today.

Gather Magazine

A mix of articles, theological reflections, devotions and stories of comfort and challenge that help readers grow in faith.

Cafe Podcast

Subscribe to our podcast:

Click to subscribe

© Copyright 2023 Women of the ELCA. All Rights Reserved.
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap
  • Contact
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
© Copyright 2023 Women of the ELCA. All Rights Reserved.